Another top 10

In keeping with Ej's fabulous post I thought I might add the top signs your going insane, because you know something isn't right, but you can't find the proof...

As added info, mine was a snorter. Just so your aware that there other methods that don't acquire one to use a lot paraphernalia.


1) It becomes an acceptable part of your life to get up at the crack of dawn to search the addicts personal areas; such as, garage, possible bathroom hiding spots, his garbage. Possibly even ransacking his car while not caring what the neighbours think of you out there in your pj's. All the while your searching your heart is pounding with the fear of finding something. You lick credit cards from his wallet that might have been used to crush the heroin. All of this done quickly, before he wakes up.

2) You write down phone numbers that you find around the house, or on his cell phone and phone them asking for a friend of yours hoping that you will be able to detect if this phone number belongs to a drug dealer by the tone of voice of the person that answers.

3) You lay awake at night,sometimes for hours, watching him sleep waiting for him to scratch. (Heroin/morphine has qualities that will make one itch and so lovingly scratch themselves. For me this happened when he was sleeping, because he knew it was a dead give away he made sure to not scratch when awake. He couldn't control this as well when he slept).

4) You easily get annoyed by your children and are more short with them, because their questions and needs disturb your obsessive thinking on how you will catch him, where is he, what is he doing....

5) When he is on the phone you drop everything to employ the bionic ear, desperately straining to hear his conversation.

6) You call him into different parts of the house to see if his pupils will change when he goes from a light room to a dark room (usually unreliable, unfortunately- see Ej's #8). You keep trying this all night hoping for proof absolute, you also keep trying it on the sly because you don't want him to know your checking because you might be wrong, and you don't want him to think that you don't believe in him. You are, after all, a supportive wife/husband.

7)You creep as quietly as possible to the bathroom when he is in it, and you stand outside of the bathroom door, heart pounding- hoping he can't hear your heart pounding, waiting for strange noises of rustling paper, clings clangs that don't go with the plipidy plop of a bowel movement (with aforementioned bionic ear).

8)You run in the bathroom when he is done to make sure it actually smells like shit. You then accept the answer "I guess my shit don't stink" that he gives you, against your better judgement.

9) You dissect bank statements to find out where certain cash withdrawals took place (certain known neighborhoods), phone the bank and try desperately not to sound like a wife/husband checking up, you talk as if it is a business need while your heart pounds. You get the information and then go and ask the addict where he withdrew the cash to compare answers, to catch him in a lie. Always trying to set him up to catch him in a lie. It consumes your life.

And finally,

10) You repeatedly do #1-9 looking for proof, solid proof so that you can confront the user. You never once simply trust that your gut is telling you... something isn't right. You deny that that is good enough evidence. You deny yourself over and over again. You think the anxiety that is rolling around in your guts is because you can't find proof- you refuse to believe that it is from the fact that you have all the proof you need. You push it down. Listening to it means you will have to take action based on your truth. You can't believe it. The anxiety is your intuition knocking at the door. The more you turn away from it, the louder it knocks. It's insanity.

If it smells like shit, looks like shit, your chances are better than good that, it's shit. And once you acknowledge that and accept that you don't need proof absolute, that he doesn't have to admit he did it for you to know, your intuition will stop knocking because there will cease to be a door that keeps it out.

I would like to add a very heartfelt thank you to Ej. I wish I could have read his blog, of an addict trying to do the next right thing, when I was in the deepest of my insanity. It would have helped me understand that addicts are not inherently evil, just momentarily possessed.